


Electronegativity

by auraofdawn



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 11:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1509146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auraofdawn/pseuds/auraofdawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As with bonding electrons, Wally is bent on keeping Artemis by his side, even if he isn’t completely sure of why yet. Artemis, however, would rather make like electron pair repulsion and get as far away as possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Electronegativity

**Author's Note:**

> I'm new. this fic isn't. it was written before there ever was a timeskip so of course, it doesn't reference anything from that... it has also existed on ffn and tumblr for over a year... and thats about it.

The metaphorical ball begins to roll while he takes notes in class.  
  
Robin, being the little smartass that he is, might call him a living oxymoron. Wally West? Paying attention  _in class??_  And being  _okay_ with it?!? Clearly, something had to be wrong here.  
  
That something did, in fact, turn out to be Wally. But for once in a blue moon, it hadn’t been his fault. It was his teacher’s.  
  
First, he blinked. Once normally, and then again at speedster pace.   
  
Then he started double-taking. Emerald eyes shifted between his notebook and the chalkboard, the Periodic Table taped to the wall and the smaller copy on his desk. He had memorized it years before becoming Kid Flash, but as he had learned the hard way, it never hurt to check.  
  
Next came the facial tics: a rising and falling of his ginger-tinted eyebrows. His thin lips pursed slightly and struggled to decide between frowning and scrunching into a line. Whichever way he went, his reaction had been fast and easily expected from both his classmates and teacher.  
  
“Mister H—”  
  
The thin balding man at the front of the room spins quickly and abruptly stops in the teen’s direction. His eyes thinned behind his wide-rimmed glasses, and his shoulders fell slightly at the sight of Wally’s practically vibrating hand.  
  
“Yes, Wally?” He sighs.  
  
“Theboardiswrong,” the teen blurts out.  
  
Mr. H folds his arms and drums his fingers along his folded sleeves.

“You’re going to have to rephrase that, Mr. West.”  
  
The redhead opens his mouth to retort, but no words come forth. His jaw hangs ajar for a moment until he points to the board and squints slightly at the all-caps writing.  
  
“No, Mister H… that’s pretty much the only way I can put it.”

Nervous laughter escapes the throats of a few of his so-called  _friends_. Dick, Kaldur, and Roy, now  _they’re_  his friends. These people that he has to spend eight hours a day with? They’re just… _civilians_.  
  
The man sternly clears his throat as the class quiets and Wally remains pointing at the board.

“Would you mind, Wally, telling us exactly what would be wrong with the notes?” he inquires, raising a gray eyebrow.  
  
Taking his cue, the student puts a lifetime fascination with science to use—combined with an unnatural speed—and his mind sets off.   
  
“Uh, well it all kinda starts with your definition of electronegatives—”  
  
Mr. H straightens and glances at the chalk-written word behind him, which is underlined and clearly spells out the same definition he’s been teaching for years.   
  
“—and from that, you seem to have gotten the equations for polar and non-polar covalent bonds mixed up…” he continues, gesturing like a teacher himself.  
  
His actual teacher, however, studies the board and realizes his mistake. “Yes, Wally, polar and non-polar can be easy to mix up but—” he starts, only to find that his star student insists on finding even more.  
  
“…But that doesn’t explain why your use of the Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion formula is saying that those hydrogen and oxygen atoms are  _attracted_ to each other?” A dry laugh gets past his lips, which continue to spew words at miles a minute. His ever-processing mind cannot be stopped, even as it becomes increasingly clear that he should. And as most of Keystone High knows, Wally West hardly does anything he  _should_.  
  
“Isn’t that contradictory, not to mention…”  
  
The teacher stammers, struggling to compute why he must compete with a student. “I’m sure you’re aware of the many uses of the VSEPR formula Mr. West, but as you can see, I’ve found the  _lone_ mistake here and you—”  
  
“…that the entire purpose of it is for electrons that want to repulse themselves away from each other, and not—”  
  
 _“Young man, you need to stop!”_  
  
“—attract.”

The room silences, even as their teacher’s scream echoes off the walls. None of the students dare move out of line, and yet Wally continues to stare down his opponent, just as Kid Flash would with a villain. 

Mr. H takes a deep breath and adjusts his glasses.

“I think you know where to go, Wally,” he sighs and folds his arms.

The teen almost bursts out of his seat. “But whhhhy?! For finding an error?!? Why do we even bother learning this stuff if you’re just gonna—“ 

“To the office, Mister West! Before you make things worse for yourself!” the man bangs a ruler on the board as the rest of the class gasps.

Wally’s spine stiffens at the noise as he lets out a low growl of defeat. He strides out of the classroom, feeling the burn of his classmates’ stares as he passes. The speed of his departure quickly becomes the last thing on his mind as he allows himself a few cool-off laps on the empty track at the back of the school. 

_Nobody’s here_ , he thinks,  _nobody’s around to happen upon the red-haired kid pushing the speed of sound in his sneakers._

_Nobody who could even try to understand._

 +/-  
  
Artemis makes a habit of declaring every Monday she wakes up to as the worst day of her life, every time the dammed day shuffles up to the beginning of her calendar.  
  
She prides herself on this routine, she really does. Dragging oneself and two feet of hair out of bed at the sound of an alarm becomes so much easier with a sour mood, she’s found. Her mother refuses to believe it of course, but the girl has become adept at faking an “optimistic” outlook for her.  
  
But it’s taken more than her entire being to act like she doesn’t  _abhor_ Gotham Academy.  
  
Truthfully, it wasn’t the school itself that she hated. It was the experience of going there that drove her mad. Like a ball rolling aimlessly down a never-ending slope, her classes  _never_ seemed to end. Seriously. There was even one occasion when her English class went straight through lunch because their teacher felt that staying in and critiquing their freshly-written essays would be “more enriching than any nourishment would.”  
  
And every teacher knows how much teenagers  _hate_ “nourishment.”  
  
Then there was her chemistry class, which for some reason just seemed destined to become the bane of her existence (sharing the title with a certain red-haired speedster). When questioned about it, she preferred to sum it up in one of three points:  
  
One: Her older-than-dirt teacher. The woman was incapable of hearing anything the first time, let alone the second, third, or sixth time. On top of that, she assigned worksheets that had to be older than the school itself, and dead to anyone who could figure out how to do them. Hell, her entire method was so outdated, it seriously baffled Artemis how such a forward-thinking school could stand to keep her employed.  
  
Two: Those rampant idiots who insisted on asking stupid questions from said older-than-dirt educator  _on freaking purpose_  just to delay the lesson. Occasionally, she had the opportunity to get back at them during kickboxing, but it quickly became apparent that these jerkoffs refused to learn in  _any_ atmosphere. Even those that involved pain.  
  
And last but  _certainly_ not least: Dick Grayson.   
  
“Hey, Artemis.”  
  
Speak of the short blue-eyed devil.  
  
The blond sighed and returned to the reality of the boy at her left, currently flicking scraps of paper at her arm. He smiled and gave a little four-fingered wave.  
  
“What do you want?” She scowled just low enough for the two of them to hear. Though the odds of the living skeleton hearing them had to be near-impossible, it was social law that sophomores didn’t associate themselves with troll-like freshman.  
  
Dick shrugged. “Nothing. You just looked like you were lost in wonderland or something.”  
  
 _“I wish,”_  Artemis scoffed under her breath, resting her chin in her palm.  
  
“What was that?” The boy perked up, raising a raven eyebrow.  
  
Her dark eyes grew wide. “Nothing!”  
  
Instinctively, the two look to the front of the classroom, where the elderly woman was either sleeping on the board or writing something in her impossible-to-read grandma font. Either way, only about five percent of the class appeared to be on task. Artemis lets herself sigh before slumping into her desk.  
  
“Why is this woman even teaching?” She whined, even though she isn’t one to show weakness in public, much less to freshman.  
  
Said freshman lets out a small chuckle. “She’s one of Gotham’s best, ya know. That’s why the Academy’s let her stay so long.”

The blond chews her lip in boredom. “Really?” She feigns interest and examines her nails instead. 

“You know how some of the people who run this place are. Once they get attached to something, they don’t ever want to change it.”

“Mm-hmm.” Now that she thinks of it, her thumbnail could use a bit if a trim…  
  
“What about you?”  
  
“Mm-hmm.”  
  
“Artemis.”  
  
“Mm-hmm?”  
  
“I said, do you have anything you’re particularly attached to? You know, like a bad habit or even a celebrity crush…?”  
  
Artemis blinks and looks at the boy from the corner or her eye. “No…” 

“Are you sure?” He smirks. “Because I’ve heard that some of the girls in your class have got it bad for a certain superhero…”

Suddenly, time stops. The blonde’s teeth latch on to her nail as she slowly turns to the troll-like teen, whose lip is curling upwards at an alarming rate. She makes sure that her dark eyes are boring holes into his soul when she replies:

“No. Freaking. Way.”

He laughs again, and Artemis swears that if it didn’t feel oddly familiar, she would punch him in the gullet. However, even trained heroes had to be above punching the son of the man who was funding their scholarship. And how would her mother would react? She shook the thought from her head.

“Come on, I bet I can guess who it is…?” 

She blinks for the first time in a full minute and begins growling at him.  _When in doubt, act like you’re going to take their head off_ , she tells herself. “Dick, it’s no use,” she says as calmly as she can. “I happen to have better things to do with my time than fawning over some—“

“Well, Aqualad doesn’t seem like your type,” he begins counting off his fingers, “Superboy is way too…robust…” 

“…Red Arrow and Robin are just out of the question, age-wise…” Artemis cringes, and her eyes snap shut. She can feel the troll’s smirk as he continues, and so help her she is  _not_  going to see it.

“So that leaves…” 

Her eyes snap open and she can feel them start to twitch with annoyance. For some reason she begins pleading with him. “For the love of all that is holy, Dick, do not—“

“Kid Flash! Am I right? I bet I’m  _right_.” 

The bright smile on the freshman’s face actually fades a bit as he registers the amount of blush growing on his classmate’s ears along with the deadly scowl that denies it. He lets out a small chuckle before the time bomb finally lets loose…

“ _Are you kidding?!_  That guy has to be the most clumsy, ego-driven excuse for a hero the world has  _ever_  seen! I actually pity anyone who could even  _think_  of falling for a prick like—“ 

“Miss Crock?” A timid voice calls the girl out her rant.

Artemis’s scowl dies a slow death on her pale face. “—Kid Flash?” 

The classroom erupts with laughter as the blond feels every stinging set of eyes rest on her, and only her. She looks down instinctively, and sees the flurry of papers and pencils that had flown off her desk during her outburst. Dick is looking up at her rather sheepishly, and begins picking up the materials for her.

Their teacher has appeared seemingly out of nowhere next to them, glowering at Artemis in particular. And Artemis, for one, is genuinely shocked that the living skeleton herself is actually paying attention to them. 

“Miss Crock, would you like to take yourself up to the office to calm down?” She asked in a low, scratchy voice.

“Uh, n-no,” the teen stammered, struggling to think of a way to cover for herself, “I think I’m fine now, thank you.” 

The woman merely smirks in a way that Artemis can only find as cruel-and-unusual punishment. “No, I think the Dean would hear about your anger issues.”

Suddenly, mercifully, the bell’s shrill ring signals the end of class. Some students burst out of the room, while others in shock of the proceedings, remain for a few lingering seconds before packing their things. 

Their educator lingers around Artemis and Dick for another achingly awkward moment before walking off, eyeing the two of them menacingly. Another passes before the girl grabs her bag in one hand and facepalms into the other.

Dick, still on his knees with her school supplies in his hands, is the first to speak. “Want me to take the rest of your stuff to you locker for you?” 

Heaving a large sigh, Artemis waves him off. “No, no, I’ll get it myself…”

“No, really, it’s not a big deal. Besides, do you really wanna be stuck in here any longer?” 

Damn, this kid was good. She’d have to remember to ask M’gann if there was a trick to the mind reading thing that wasn’t totally Martian.

“Fine. But tell anyone my combo, and I will  _end_  you.” 

He lets out another chuckle.  _Where had she heard that before?_

“No need for threats, I hear you loud and clear. Which block is your locker in, left or right?” 

Just then, a snickering group of girls from the jerkoff section of the class sauntered by, dragging their over-priced shoes as they passed. Once they spotted the blonde, of course, their laughter went on the uptake. 

“Artemis…”

Okay, maybe she did hate Gotham Academy. If everything about it drove her batty, then of course it would make sense how little she wanted to do with it, right?

“Right.”  
  
+/-  
  


Being the last to leave and the first to arrive, M’gann takes a deep responsibility in the status of the Cave. 

First and foremost, there is cleaning.

As much as she cares about the boys, she can’t help but feel down at the sight of the messes they leave in the wake of their daily “hang outs.” When she asks Connor about the cause of these messes, he usually shrugs and continues observing the signal-less television. 

Kaldur, thankfully, makes an effort to apologize and offers to help, although she hardly lets him since it’s never his fault in the first place.

Robin will, on occasion, start telling some elaborate tale about a game he often played with Wally. It sometimes involved truth or dare—which  _always_  ended messily—or something Artemis-related that ended with some kind of throwing argument. Either way, he often dissolved in cackles by the end of the story. 

And Wally, when she asks him as he stomps into the Cave, simply growls something unintelligible at her and disappears down the hallway.

For a second, the Martian is so bewildered at his unusually grouchy attitude, that she doesn’t move for a good minute. When she is just about to continue her cleaning, a wind blows her right into the kitchen island, and the rack of cookies she’d left cooling on the stove is gone. She knowingly strides to the open door of the refrigerator, where Wally of course, is shuffling through it’s contents. 

She smirks down at him and his armful of snacks until he opens his mouth, and a pack of string cheese falls to the floor.

“I’m hungry, okay?” he laments, shrugging his shoulders.

“AndiftheFlashcallstellhimI’moutpartollingokay, bye!” 

In another brisk wind he sped off towards the library, leaving the fridge door wide open. M’gann allows herself to smirk again before closing it and shaking her head. As she returns to her cleaning, the computer announces the arrival of Artemis, who arrives in the kitchen before the sound of the Zeta tubes shuts off.

“Artemis,” she greeted her Earth-sister, “how are you today?”

The girl only glances at her before letting out a heavy sigh. “Hello, Megan,” she replies, striding in the exact direction as Wally before her.

The Martian knocked herself on the forehead in mock humor. Artemis shot her a small smile and kept walking.

That smile disappeared as quickly as it came, however, once she arrived at her destination.

_“You!”_

_“Who?”_  The archer’s brow crinkled at the yell until she came face-to-face with a green-eyed blur.

“What are you doing here?” Wally demanded, narrowing his emerald eyes at his nemesis.

Artemis scoffed, and pushed her way past the roadblock. “This is  _the Team’s_  headquarters, Baywatch. Like it or not, I’m entitled to be here too.”

The speedster throws up his arms in defeat and gapes at her. “Yeah, but do you have to be  _here,_  here?”

Blinking, the blonde sets her things on a table and slowly turns back at him “Yes…”

Suddenly Wally is beside her again, only with one hand in a bag of chips and the other leaning on the table. The archer pointedly glares at him and continues to remove books from her bag. A flabbergasted sound comes out of his mouth and crumbs trickle down his shirt.

“Look, I’ve had a really bad day, and if you could just lay low for awhile—“

“Are you trying to bargain with me?”

He bites his lip and shrivels a little. “Uh, yes?”

“Why?”

“BecauseIkindofgotintroubleatschooltodayandIreallydon’twannatalktotheFlashaboutityet, sooo….”

“So you’re hiding in the Cave’s library,” Artemis deadpans, demonstrating a surprising understanding of speedster-speak.

“Yes.”

“Because you think this is the last place he’ll look, or what?” She eyes him carefully as he squirms in place.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” Wally relents, jumping into the nearest chair.

The blonde absentmindedly runs a hand through her long ponytail and curls a few strands around her fingers. “Well, what makes you think I’m cool with it?”

Wally chokes and gapes up at her. “Wait, what?” 

“What makes you think I won’t turn you in, huh?”

He gasps and points an accusing finger at her. “…You  _wouldn’t!”_ _  
_

She smirks. “Oh, I  _would.”_

“But whyyyyy? I-I haven’t done anything to you! Er, today at least!” 

“Then go make yourself scarce while I study!” She commands, opening her chemistry book and settling into her chair.

The silence that ensues is brief, as the footsteps Artemis hears are slow and settle quickly. Soon enough, she begins hearing a steady crunching sound behind her left shoulder, and crumbs begin falling onto her notes. 

Gritting her teeth, she slaps the table and spins around.

“What. Do. You. Want?” 

Wally is silent for a second. “…I wanted to see what you’re studying,” he admits, crumbs falling from his lip.

“Chemistry. Now if you’ll excuse me…” 

Amazingly, the teen perks up. “Wait, wait, wait, chem?! Lemme see!”

“Wally, let g—“ She puts up a weak fight, and the speedster easily takes her book hostage. 

“Oh, you’re a chapter behind my class. Which isn’t surprising since, ya know,  _I’m in AP_ ,” he grins ear to ear and freaking  _winks_  at her, which somehow makes her blood boil.

Regaining her composure, the blonde infers, “ _You’re_  in AP Chemistry? Wha’d you do to get into that class?” 

“I’ve been getting straight A’s in science my entire life.  _They_  practically begged  _me_  to take the class just so their average test scores would go up.”

“Well, if I don’t pass the next test and finish this stupid research paper my teacher threw at me, I’m going to bring my school’s average down. So if you’ll give me some quiet time, Wally—“ 

“I can help you!”

It’s Artemis’ turn to choke. “Uh, what?” 

“I can tutor you! Just let me know what you’re having trouble with and I’ll help you with it! Provided you don’t, ya know, turn me in…?”

“You’re joking.” 

“Trust me, Beautiful, you’d already be laughing if I was.”

It takes a lot of willpower to hide the blush that erupts from the old nickname, but Artemis carries on. “Okay, well, how do I know you really know what you’re talking about?” 

He takes one look at her book, leans down to glance at her notebook and begins reciting:

“An Ion is an atom with a positive or negative charge that either gains or forfeits electrons as it bonds. Ionic bonds are between a metal and a non-metal, covalent bonds are between two non-metals and a metal and can be either polar and non-polar.” 

She blinks. “Okay…”

“Electronegativity, which  _apparently_  is open to re-definition, is the measurement of how tightly an atom holds electrons in said bonds, and can be determined easily by looking at the Periodic Table.” 

As much as the archer would prefer to find a way to make him leave, she has to admit that the little science nerd is  _good_. Like, shockingly so.

“Well, uhhh… You’re hired?” 

Wally’s hand rushes into hers, wildly shaking it. “And we have a deal?”

Artemis bites her lip and hums silently, mulling over the details. The sides seemed equal, but as long as she remained in the driver’s seat… 

The archer pulled her hand away and the speedster’s grin fell. “Will you tell me why you need to hide here in the first place?”

The speed with which Wally’s bright green eyes go dull and his lip curls over like a begging dog’s is pure hilarity to her. She has to hold her gut to keep from falling off her chair. 

“Whyyyyyyy?!”

“This is part of the deal, now tell!” 

He throws his arms up in a flabbergasted moment and plants them on the table. “Okay, okay! I, um, kinda got into a fight with my teacher today, and—“

“Wait, like a real fight, or a regular fight?” Artemis laughed, she couldn’t picture Wally doing either. 

“I told him his notes were wrong and he sent me to the principal’s office,” he admitted with a stubborn look. “Then I ditched the rest of class and threw away the detention slip they gave me so my parents wouldn’t find out.”

The archer was taken aback for a second, marveling the odds of how the both of them could be sent to the office in the same school day. “Really,” she observed, thinking about those ions he had been blabbing about earlier. “Well, that is interesting…”

Wally is running his hands through his ruffled ginger locks and moaning in boredom when Artemis snaps back into reality again. “C’mon Artemis, I’ve already had enough crap today! The least you could do is  _act_  nice.”

“Alright, alright, let’s get this over with…You better not make this harder than it has to be, by the way,” she warns, flipping to the next page in her notebook. 

Wally’s face lights up in mock excitement. “ _Really?!_  I mean, I would think since you live to challenge people, that you’d  _love_  being challenged.”

“And you do?” 

“Touché. Now, let’s get started with cations and anions…”

+/-

Undoubtedly, his parents do hear about his “encounter” with his teacher (their third of the semester…so far). As true parents, they demand an explanation, and as always, he provides an honest answer:

“I proved the teacher wrong and he got pissed,” he admits, casually tossing a handful of chips into his gullet. They had him cornered on the couch, what most teens would consider a spot of shame, and yet he lounges on it like any other day. “That’s all.”

Mr. and Mrs. West can only nod and resist the urge to face-palm at their mischievous son.  
  
His uncle, however, isn’t as forgiving as one would infer from his easy-going personality.  
  
“You can’t let these kinds of things keep happening, kiddo,” he scolds during a rather quiet patrol. “And don’t try and put it like nobody gets you—”  
  
Wally scoffs and pushes himself a few miles faster. “Even though they  _don’t_.”  
  
Barry frowns and breezily takes a few more paces on his nephew’s rage-speed. He nudges his partner’s shoulder as he does so and looks back at him with a sigh.  
  
” _—Because_  I’ve been there too. Maybe not as young as you, Wall, but science and speed run down the same path. Remember that.”  
  
With those words the Flash takes off in a different direction, effectively leaving his partner in the dust and ending their patrol. But Kid Flash keeps running forward, right out of Central City.  
  
And he remembers each word along with every step he takes. He knows he can’t forget, even if he wanted to. Because he’s not about to let himself forget anymore.  
  
Or any _one._  
  
+/-  
  
The speed with which Kid Flash comes barreling through Gotham is almost unparalleled. It prompts Dick to make a mental note to start keeping a speed gun in his locker, just in case.

When the speedster blows past his best friend without so much as a wave, however, is when he realizes something is up. Something  _dire_ , indeed.

With a mischievous chuckle the boy wonder continues his stride out of courtyard and towards the waiting limo on the curb. He makes another note to hack the school’s security footage sometime after the storm blows over. Hopefully, he won’t have to dig to far to find enough blackmail for the rest of the year. 

Artemis is pretending to shuffle through her locker when she hears it. 

Her mind is too excited for her to pay much attention to her surroundings. Somehow, someway, she had just managed to survive the hardest section in chemistry to date with a B. With finals coming up next month, she stood at a good enough place to raise her grade by an entire letter  _before_  finals, thus sparing her any of the traditional stress.

Her mood was also helped by how understanding her mother had been when she’d illustrated her side of the incident. Sure, she’d lost a few of her extra-curriculars initially, but the restrictions didn’t last long. At least, not after the personal call Bruce  _freaking_  Wayne had made to assure her mother that her scholarship wouldn’t be affected by citizenship. 

Nevertheless, it was almost funny now to think how she owed the Wall-man an apology for all their…bickering. He had been her absolute last resort, and he had actually come through for her. It was almost…nice to think that he could actually be something other than a total ass and be helpful.

Almost. 

_“Artemiiiissss!”_

Like a lost nightmare she couldn’t quite grasp, the blonde spun around in cold fear at the shrill echo of her name. Before she could locate the sound of the yell, a pair of scarlet gloves encircled her shoulders and nearly dragged her out of the hallway with the momentum. 

A small shriek escaped her thin lips as quickly as a hand clamped over them.

“Chill Arty, it’s just me,” the voice soothed and slowly released her. 

Not one to waste time, the blonde elbowed her captor in the chest and stomped on the general location of their foot before pushing herself a safe distance away. Leaning against the wall of lockers, she took a deep breath and looked down at the bright heap of a groaning, teenage superhero.

A groaning, albeit in uniform,  _Wally_. 

A slew of apologies escaped Artemis’ mouth as she helped the hero up and dragged him into a slightly-more-private enclave of lockers. Once in the clear, she socked him in the shoulder again.

“OWWWW, Artemiiiiissss! What was that one for?!?” 

“Good measure,” she scolded. “Now tell me why you’re here—and in uniform, no less?!”

“I-I, uh, heard you went here, and I happened to be on patrol already, so…” he stammered out, rubbing his aching arm absentmindedly. 

“And…”

He blinked and pointed to the bag slung over her shoulder. “You have my Periodic Table.” 

“What?” Artemis flinches and adjusts her uniform out of habit.

“My copy,” he alludes. “You borrowed it for your test, since it had all my notes on the back?” 

“Ohhh, y-yeah, I have it,” she trails off, digging through her belongings. A folded piece of paper appeared in her hand as she removed it and held it out to him. He took it and slipped it into one of the cupboards on his wrist.

“Hey, I forgot to ask! How’d you do on the test?” 

Wordlessly, the blond shoves another paper into his face and finds herself grinning as his lights up.

“B+. Niiiiice,” he drawls, shooting her a thumbs up. “So, are you gonna aim for an A- next time or even higher?”

She closes her bag and clips him with it as she swings it back over her shoulder. “What do you think, Kid Idiot?”

“Hey, chillax, harpy! You wouldn’t have gotten such a great grade without me, you know.” He smirks at her, and she swears the tips of his ears are starting to match the scarlet in his spandex. 

“So you came here to gloat about your mediocre tutoring skills?” She teases, looking at him sideways. “Oh, excuse me, your  _Periodic Table_. Do you really  _need_  it to figure out the electronegativity of an atom, or are you just emotionally attached to it?”

Wally locks eyes with her for a moment, partially proud that his genius had managed to rub off, and partially timid for his Table. But hey, he was a  _scientist_. Of course the thing was precious to him. 

“What, I can’t run across the country to talk to one of my  _teammates_?” he elaborates quickly, and Artemis laughs.

Like an atom in need of its eighth valence electron, Wally was desperate to bond. With her in particular, or with anything, wasn’t exactly clear. And yet a small, insignificant portion of her mind found that mildly cute. Mildly. Then again, so were puppies, so that classification was a two-way street. 

And yet it appeared her thoughts of the red-haired speedster went both ways as well.

The brightly colored speedster tapped an impatient foot on the cement and looked up at her with a dopish look on his face. “Would thou lady appreciate an escort to her dwelling?” 

The archer folded her arms and observed him sternly. “…You better keep your hands where I can see them, Baywatch. It wasn’t my best day, but I  _remember_  what you pulled in Bialya.”

“C’mon, Beautiful, you know I don’t roll like that,” he drawled, taking her into his spandex-covered arms. “At least, not all the time.” 

Artemis smacked him upside the head, and he mocked pain as they took off down the streets of Gotham. She knew they’d arrive at her home in mere minutes, but another part of her—the mildly cute part—could feel them headed somewhere else.

Wherever that was, the electricity weaving through her hair was more than enough for her to realize that somewhere was wherever she wanted to be. Even if that somewhere turned out to be wherever  _he_  was.

Now it seemed, she could live with that thought after all.


End file.
